Complex products or industrial equipments are using wires to channel power and control signals between various components therein. In modern vehicles, for instance, it is possible to find a significant number of wires or electric cables disposed between various electronic and electrical components. These cables need to be conveniently packaged in a harness to be safely and easily installed.
The harness has a generally arbitrary shape adapted to its unique use. The harness comprises nodes, from which branches of electrical wires project toward connection ends in order to interconnect each components such as lights, electronic boards, actuators and sensors. A harness can be more or less complex depending on the number of systems it has to interconnect.
The wires forming the harness are tied together with a protective layer disposed thereon. The protective layer is commonly a layer of tape that is installed over the group of wires to ensure that all wires routed similarly are joined together. Additionally, the tape can be discontinuously applied on over the wires to leave some desired area uncovered thus leaving direct access to the wires. If the harness provides a number of branches leading to various connection ends the branches are also protected with a layer of tape.
The tape can be manually installed over the bundle of wires. Alternatively, a machine can be used to apply significant amount of tape over the wires.
A prior art taping machine 10 is illustrated on FIG. 1. The taping machine 10 is a portable taping machine in the sense that it must be manually held by the user. The user grabs the handle 12, pass the group of wires to be taped together within the safety cover 14 through the aperture 16. For so doing, the aperture 16 needs to be aligned with the opened door 18 to have access to the central opening 20.
Once the group of wires is located in the central opening 20 the user press the actuation button 26 to power the motor 22 to rotate the central portion 24 of the taping machine 10. The central portion of the taping machine 10 accommodates a roll of tape (not visible on FIG. 1) to revolve the roll of tape about the group of wires to secure the group of wires together and form a harness of wires.
The illustrated prior art taping device 10 can be suspended by the hook 26 to reduce the weight supported by the user. Once the taping machine 10 is properly held and wires are disposed inside the central opening 20 the user actuates the rotation of the central portion 24 and slowly moves along the cables to wrap the desired portion of cables with tape.
Due to the complexity of certain harnesses having different lengths and number of branches a solution for automating the taping procedure in a sufficiently simple and viable manner has yet to be found. A problem with prior art solutions is the possibility of providing inconsistent quality and, therefore, in certain cases, defects in the harness. Another issue present with the prior art is that they need to be manually manipulated thus increasing the fatigue of the person operating the taping machine. One other downfall of prior art solutions is that the operator moves the machine as opposed to move the harness, which is usually lighter.
It would therefore be desirable to render the harness taping procedure less labor intensive, in a cost effective manner, whilst ensuring flexibility, simplicity and reliability. An improved apparatus and an improved method for taping wires to form a harness are therefore desirable over the existing art.